Dementia
by Felidae1
Summary: A little insight into the Masked Mallards past, and perhaps the reason for his constant search for attention and approval. Be aware that this story will grow more and more grim towards the end.


Hooray, my first finished DW-story! Not my first, that would be _Zenith_, which is about 23% done(used to be 24%, but I deleted the new chapter and kept the old version. Yeah, I'm that dumb).

Anyways, this is a little stroll through Drake's past, trying to explain his character, both his need for attention as well as his darker side. Be warned, though, this story will get more and more grim towards the end. Please be aware that this story contains no actual dialogue whatsoever -and before you start complaining, that's pretty difficult to achieve with a show and character as talkative as this.

Disclaimer: Drake Mallard/Darkwing Duck belongs to Tad Stones and, sadly enough, Disney. Trying to sue me would make you look incredibly stupid.

Summary: Drake Mallard was never really well to begin with -or was he? A deeper look into a shrouded past that might explain the duck behind the hero from a different angle.

Warnings: violence, child abuse, slight OOC

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Dementia

To him, it had always been a dance on the edge of the volcano. From the very moment his mother slipped away into a constant drunk stupor, Drake Mallard had been on his own. His father, who was too busy working and trying to coax his wife back into the joyous, energetic woman he had married, never took notice of his only son's need for love. Not that he would never show him any affection or pay attention to him, but the slightest moan from his wife would drive the elder Mallard away from his son and to the side of his beloved better half. All alone with is confusion, loneliness and fear, Drake tried to make himself invisible and hide from the world. At the age of five, Drake tried to draw as little attention to himself as possible; the emotional neglect he suffered from such an early stage on showing in his slowed growth.

Things took a turn for the worse, when his mother passed away. Drake at that point had been a mere seven years old, not knowing how to deal with the loss. His father locked himself into his own little world, barely communicating with his only remaining family member. Left with no one to talk to, Drake turned to superhero comics. Here he found comfort, and by narrating the adventures and rehearsing the dialogues in the speech bubbles, he actually had conversation partners -even if they were merely fictional. Weeks, months could pass like this, in which a scarce two dozen words were spoken, then, without warning, little Drake Mallard would find himself smothered in hugs and tender words, when his father managed to realize that he was missing out on his son growing up.

Sadly enough, these moments grew more and more rare, the quiet stretches inbetween becoming longer and longer, until the words they exchanged were reduced to the meaningless phrases on birthdays and holidays. Drake discovered Doe, Coyle and Pristie# and decided to become a detective. He began trying to figure out the minor everyday difficulties and riddles which plagued his neighbours and schoolmates, such as finding lost keys and misplaced wallets, and even once rescuing the school janitor's pet lizard, which had gone astray in the ventilation duct of the school's HE room. That also ended the rumor of the School Ghost and made Drake somewhat of a small hero. Not that the fame lasted. Or his father ever took notice.

By the age of twelve, Drake had completely forgotten what it meant to have a father; to him, the person whom he had descended from was just a friendly visitor who took care of his everyday needs. He had a roof over his head, there was food on the table, clean clothes and the occasional note that his father would be gone for one business trip or another, but he had no home. In the solitude of his empty house Drake began to recite all the books he could get his hands on, just to drone out the silence. One summer, Drake was thirteen, he almost drowned when swimming on the southside of Audubon Beach. He spent the rest of the day and the better part of the evening in the ER, because his father had an important business meeting downtown and couldn't pick him up earlier. Drake never told anybody that he had attempted to commit suicide. He had failed, but somewhere, in a far, distant, forbidden part of his brain, an idea had begun to fester.

He had discovered chemistry and physics and spent most of his free time conducting weird experiments -at least, as far as his limited funds and possibilities allowed. He did manage to blow up the school bullies' treehouse without leaving so much has a trace, and even created something that looked like strawberry punch and tasted like gummi sour cherries. It was quite a hit on kids' birthday parties, but when he moved on to junior high, he threw away the recipe because he decided that no one, aside of small kids, really liked the concoction(a teacher though, found the note and decided to put it into production, just for the fun of it. Two years later, 'Flush Guppy'(C) made its grand entrance into the Fast-Food market).

When he was fourteen, his father hit him. He had never done so before, safe for the occasional slap on his behind when he was still an unruly toddler, but now Drake felt his rapidly swelling cheek as if he had never known it to be there. Looming over him, his father had merely glared at him and the small destillery factory Drake had set up in the attic. Then the elder Mallard had proceeded to deinstall the entire apparatus; carefully detaching and disconnecting the various tubes, drains and pipes, collecting the already filled bottles and throwing everything into a trash bag. Drake stood there, watching his father destroy his laboratory, silent, mute, never lifting a finger or showing any emotion. The little idea in his brain began to make itself known.

Four days later, a plainclothesman dropped Drake on his front door and the charges against him for illegal prescription narcotics possession. Quackarax, Avidan, Multicol Soisum+ were but a few of them. After the policeman had left, the two ducks kept staring at each other for the longest time. Drake knew what was coming, even before the first blow hit him square across the beak, dislocating his jaw. Before he had time to shake off the ensuing dizzyness, his father had dragged him into the bathroom and stuck his head into the sink, keeping Drake down with brute force as he let the icy water run over his son's head, until this one stopped fighting back. The idea had grown to uncomprehendible measures and reared its ugly head.

One week later, after a drug-induced unconciousness, Mallard senior found himself in his room naked, tied to his bed with parcel tape; his left hand the only unrestrained limb, holding nothing but an old butter knife to free himself. His son stood in the doorframe, unmoving, arms crossed, watching as his father freed himself; one agonizingly inneffective cut after another. Hour after hour, the only things that could be heard were the elder duck's pants and curses, the ripping and cutting noises coming from the tape and knife. Finally, with a last agonized gasp, the remains of the tape came off, taking with it a half a dozen or so blood-tipped feathers. Drake turned around and walked away. The idea had sprouted saplings.

Many remember the Cold War. However, within the Mallard residence reigned an eternal Ice Age. Father and son communicated merely via notes, if at all. A sidelong glance could lead to a heated staring contest, an innocent snort break loose a fistfight. But whether physical or mental, the battle was always silent. No words were spoken, no insults traded, just adamant, icy, all-consuming silence. On his fifteenth birthday, Drake was hospitalized for a broken rib and alcohol poisoning. He claimed, he had partied with some of his friends(he didn't have any friends, he had bribed the few guys, who were remotely friendly to him, with free beer), and fallen down the stairs because he had been drunk out of his mind. The hospital record however read _'..multiple hamatomae, inconsistent with falling down stairs. Suspect blunt object traumata, various abrasions on face and hands, no wounds on lower extremities. Blood alcohol: 2.3 0/00.'_

Four months later, the coffeemaker exploded, just as his father sat down for breakfast. A splinter wedged itself into the elder duck's skull, leaving him paralized for several days. When Drake returned the night after his father had been released from hospital, he found all his possessions neatly stacked on the front yard. Drake moved into the garden shed and only entered the house to shower or when the nights grew too cold to stay in the unheated, ill-insulated cot.

Sweet sixteen was pretty uneventful; his father was on another prolonged business trip and Drake had the house to himself. He had baked himself a cake for lunch and was enjoying a baseball game on TV while studying, when the oddest thing happened. For a moment, he went both deaf and blind, even as a vicious case of vertigo practically threw him off the couch. Panting, gasping for air, Drake clawed at the carpet, frothing at the mouth and then -it stopped. With crystal clarity he heard a voice telling him to stop the cycle. Then his head exploded into a pandemonium of pain that blanked out everything else. His father was rather surprised to come home and find that his son had moved back into the cellar. Drake never mentioned his episode to anyone.

Being an A student was a task he had never found himself fit to tackle, but after the 'event' -Drake refused to call it anything else- he rediscovered his initial curiosity and thirst for knowledge. Still, he was out of sorts; between seeking attention and approval from his schoolmates and simultaneously locking himself away from the outside world, Drake found himself drifting through senior high without a goal. Until senior prom. When he walked back through the door after defeating Megavolt for, what he didn't knew at that point would be the first time, he felt a rush of power. Drake Mallard might have been just your off-the-mill, not-so-everyday awkward push-over, but with the needed skills and training, he would become someone to be reckoned. To be admired. To be loved.

Five weeks after graduation, the Mallard house was set ablaze in the middle of the night; the fire burning the building down to its very foundation and killing Drake's sleeping father in the process. Drake, who at the time had a job as a night parking attendant at one of the better hotels across town, was called to the burning home. By the time he arrived, the firefighters had just managed to get the fire under control, extinguishing the last embers. Sky-blue orbs roamed over the destruction, taking in the mound of smoaking ashes, burnt bricks and blackened pilars, then came to rest on a small, square construction seated just behind the ruins. The garden shed had survived the fire unscathed. Again, Drake's eyes danced across the scenerie, searching inside himself for the expected onslaught of feelings such as guilt or sadness. Instead, he felt nothing, entirely detached, not even the slightest twinge of regret. If anything, it was a vague kind of relief blended with lingering worry.

And suddenly, he was the center of everybody's attention; he was showered with good will, affection and sympathy wherever he turned. People figured his lack of tears were a reaction to the shock of suddenly finding himself both orphaned and homeless. The city hall and school board simultaneously pushed forward the fire inquest, which revealed that the fire had been caused by the old, ill-maintained wiring of the house. His father had several times requested the building regulations office to come take a survey, but had repeatedly met with a rebuff. Needless to say, there was a public uproar; the entire case was taken to court and by the end of the hearing, young Drake Mallard found himself with the money of both the house's and his father's life insurance as well as the heritage his mother had left them. He split the money up into several smaller packages and deposited each one at a different bank. Then he returned to where their house had once stood, noticing that all the rubble had already been removed. Carefully traipsing through the grass, he made his way to the garden shed. For several moments, he tried the lock, before he could pry it open. Everything was as he had left it.

Forty minutes later Drake Mallard could be seen stepping out of the little hut with his fully laden backpack. He diligently locked the door, then turned around and walked out his old front yard, never once looking back.

It was ten days to his eighteenth birthday.

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_There, one complete DW fic in basically one go. Sorry for any grammar errors, missspelling or logical flaws, but I really just wanted to get this out of my system. I'll need to revamp it, though, once I'm awake. Still I hope you like it, and even if not feel free to review, thanks._

_#Doe, Coyle and Pristie: I was toying a little with their names, but I guess it's obvious_

_Flush Guppy'(C): Hey, I came up with that all by my lonesome! And we all know what it stands for, don't we._

_+ A llttle name juggling; they're actually called Atarax, Ativan, Butisol Sodium, three very powerful sedatives._

_ Foor more information try Drugs. Com_


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